We got broadband super early for the UK, I think around late 2000, as my dad was part of the 21CN team at BT.

It was surreal how fast that seemed back then and being an 11 year old kid with that instant access to a whole web that seemed almost exclusively populated by adults if not late teens at that moment.

COVID made this accurate

Maybe the younger ones still elastic brains were just too vulnerable

E: Usenet, irc, forums etc were like an early training ground hardening us against the purveyors of bullshit. When bullshit became the business of billionaire corporations online we were ready for it. They never had a chance…